


You Will Die Many Times

by WhatOtherPlanet



Category: Dark Souls (Video Games)
Genre: Basically every kind of trauma, Being Dark Souls Is Suffering, Being Undead Sucks, Canon Compliant, Gen, No Experience With Dark Souls Required, No shipping, Not sure if PTSD because the trauma is now, POV Second Person, Psychological Trauma, Trauma, mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2018-06-10 03:22:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6937693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatOtherPlanet/pseuds/WhatOtherPlanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long ago, the Lords found the First Flame, and used its power to strike down the everlasting dragons and begin the Age of Fire.</p><p>Now, the fire fades, the Dark encroaches, and the doors of the Asylum in the north groan open.</p><p>(This story requires little/no knowledge of Dark Souls or its sequels. I intended this initially as a kind of "novelization" of the story, for people without the hardware, skill, or infinite patience required to actually play the game. My goal is to bring a little bit of the Dark Souls experience to a new audience, so please feel free to recommend to friends who aren't fans!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Duty of a Knight

You awake in a cell, as a corpse falls from the ceiling and lands at your feet.

Above you, a knight looks down from a hole in the roof. He doesn’t say anything, his expression masked by his helm, but an uncanny sense of familiarity settles over you.

He looks up, raises his shield, and backs out of view. A moment later, a great crash rocks the building, then another, then another. Dust falls at your boots.

Then, all is still.

 

Eventually, you stand. A rat scurries away from its den, built between your back and the wall, stopping in the shadows to watch you with milky eyes.

You feel tired. Your body groans as it moves, joints crackling like old dry branches. Rusted armor crunches around your joints. The symbols carved into your breastplate are meaningless to you, and your thoughts are hazy. You just barely remember your name, but you cannot remember where it came from, or who else might have known it besides yourself.

This feels… bad. Wrong.

You force yourself to hold onto your name. It seems important, to remember something. You try to say it, but as you open your mouth you realize that your tongue has dried out. You can't feel it, even when you touch it with your finger. It won't move. It's as if one of the rats crawled into your mouth and died.

You feel like this should bother you more than it does. You decide not to focus on it now, or on the other… incorrect sensations throughout your body. You're very glad there's no mirror in the cell.

You turn your attention to the corpse, the one that knight threw into your cell, but you barely have time to register the gaunt, dessicated face or the ancient, tattered clothes before you notice something much more important.

It has a ring of keys on its belt.

 

The hallways are long, lit by sputtering torches. The air is still, dead. As you walk, you see others, some in the cells, some out. Some are clothed as knights, some as sorcerers, clerics, commoners, bandits, nobles. There is no class here. Together, they stare listlessly at the walls, or off into space, their eyes shimmering like fading embers.

They have forgotten their names. You find a sword on the ground. It's broken, the blade snapped off four inches from the hilt, but you hold it tight.

You will not forget.

 

You stumble out into a courtyard. The air is cleaner here, cold. You take a deep breath. Still, you can smell the rot of this place. Where are you? You remember something, shackles on your wrists, fearful eyes, whispers of “darksign” and “undead.” You remember backs turned on you, a sentence—to the north. An asylum, for your kind. This is where you are.

Something is in the middle of the courtyard. A sword, plunged into the earth. It glows, just faintly, and it’s as if you can feel a warmth coming from it. Drawing closer, you see that there are ashes around the base. Ashes and bones.

You don’t think. Automatically, you reach out your hand and hold it above the sword. The ashes flash, and the bonfire is kindled.

You stumble, and the rust falls off your armor. Your sword glitters in the light, seeming suddenly a little less tattered, and you feel the warmth run through you like warm honey, burning away the dust between your bones. A nameless ache is fading away, one you’ve lived with so long you can’t even remember its absence.

 

You are a spider’s thread away from sleep when you remember the knight on the roof. You stand, and for the first time you register the gate at the end of the courtyard. It’s massive, tall enough for a giant to pass. You step towards it, and find that the fire has made you bold. You brace your hands against the door, and _push._

It’s slow, but the door gives. Another yard, floored in uneven tiles and filled with crates and jars of supplies, empty now. No one has bothered to send food to the asylum for a very long time. The undead don’t _need_ to eat, after all, and these days few among the living can be bothered to care about their comfort.

There’s another gate, across the yard. You’re halfway there when you hear the sound.

Laughter. Gurgling, twisted, vile.

You look up just in time to see the massive, bloated body of a demon crashing down towards you.

And you die.

 

You wake at the bonfire, gasping, clutching your chest. Off in the courtyard, you can see the demon lifting its hammer, scattering a pile of ashes.

You grip your broken sword in shaking hands, let out a cry, and charge.

And you die again.

 

You wake, just as before.

This time, you circle the demon. It’s almost three times your height, its hammer’s head the size of your torso, but it’s clumsy. It staggers around, swinging its hammer like a drunkard swings a table leg. You remember your training, how to fight giants and other beasts this side. You stay light on your feet, ducking out of the demon’s range. When it overcommits, swinging its hammer into a wall and getting it lodged there for a moment, you dart forward to strike.

Your sword strikes the demon's flesh, and bounces off the rubbery hide. It's far too blunt to get through. You look up just in time to see the demon's hand closing around your head. You feel the plates of your helmet crush in against your skull, and then you feel a terrible, shattering pain.

This is the third time you've died.

 

You wake again, and you have to clutch your shoulders for a moment. It's like a dream, almost, and you can almost convince yourself that you will soon wake up.

But the pain feels real, even though your body is whole. Even though that self is ash, now, you still remember how it feels to die.

 

This time, you don’t fight. You saw a door, off to the side. You can’t get the gate open with that demon present—even if it happened to be unlocked like the first, but you can at least get past it. Maybe there will be something else you can use, up ahead.

You run past the demon, diving forward and rolling to dodge as it slams its hammer into the stones behind you. You make it to the door and slip quickly inside, and the demon’s bellow shakes the walls as you come to a stop. The door was human-sized. There’s no way for the demon to get through short of demolishing the wall—and while you wouldn’t place odds on its ability to do that, it seems like the thing is content to stay outside for now.

In front of you, another twisted sword, and more ashes. You reach out your hand.

 

The asylum is a maze. The faces in the cells blend together. One whispers something to himself, head pressed against the ground. Another claws at the wall with her hands, and when you look you realize that she’s gone past her fingernails now, and scrapes at the wall with bloody, aching bone.

One has managed to get out of his cell. You see him as you round a corner, standing in a doorway, hunched. He wears some kind of leather garb, perhaps those of a mercenary, or a hunter from some foreign land. A broadsword, dirty, but fully intact, dangles from his fingers. He turns his head, and his face is that of a corpse, twisted skin pulled back from brown, cracked teeth. His eyes are embers.

He growls through a hole in his neck.

You don’t waste time. Your memories are scattered, but you remember hollows. You remember the unmistakable smell that lingers in the air. You remember how wrong it feels when your sword parts their flesh—the skin like flaking paper, the bones like dry wood. With a broken sword, the feeling is no more pleasant. It takes three swings to fully put him down.

He crumples, but does not turn to ash like you, like the other knight. It’s something you’ve never truly understood, but not all undead are linked to the Bonfires. It requires a bit of will, to stay that way, and after the hollowing strips that away… well, the undead don’t _die,_ of course, but the bonfires are the only thing that keeps them coming back clean.

Already, the hollow is starting to knit back together. His leg twitches, and begins to jerk its way along the floor to the rest of him.

You reach down, and take the sword. You have to shake his fingers off of it. It's a broadsword, and well-sharpened despite its age. Perhaps that was something the hollow remembered to do somehow, so ingrained in habit that it remained even after every other vestige of personality had faded.

In any case, you discard your broken sword for this fresh one. It will do, for now.

You’re about to walk on past the body when you hear a voice.

“…You…”

You turn sharply, and spot him in the cell across the hall. The knight.

He’s dying.

Fallen debris have unhinged the door, and you push it aside to make your entrance. He lies on a pile of rubble, his limbs twisted unnaturally under his armor. His stuttered breathing tells of worse injuries you cannot see.

You see the hole in the roof, grey light falling upon his twisted body. The scene plays out in your head. The demon came from the roof—it must have caught him there, after he threw you the keys. It smashed him through the ceiling and into this cell. The most remarkable thing is that he's still alive now.

He lifts his head, just a little.

“You’re no… hollow…” You’ve heard men with punctured lungs try to speak before. He sounds better, but not much. “I thought… as much.”

You go to him, kneel beside him. His hands are very still in yours.

His visor is down, hiding his face, but something about the armor strikes you as familiar, kindles some ashen memory, as if perhaps you knew this person in an age long ago. But the voice has no such resonance. He laughs, but it’s a weak sound.

“There's not much… left of me, I fear.” He tries to sit up, but the rubble shifts, and he falls back again with a long groan. Something gurgles in his throat.

You try to find some words, but your throat feels dry. Finally, something comes. “Thank you.” It's only at this moment that you realize your tongue is working again.

“Ah… the keys.” He laughs again. “You're welcome… for all that it's worth." He falls silent, with only his breathing to fill the space.

In another cell, a prisoner lets out a low and anguished moan.

"Listen," the knight says suddenly, and his hand clasps around yours with a strength you can hardly believe he has left. "I am finished. I can feel it in my blood. But you… I have a favor to ask, one thing that must fade with my mind."

You nod.

"Listen to these words, and remember them.

'Thou who art Undead, art chosen…

…In thine exodus from the Undead Asylum…

...Maketh pilgrimage to the Land of Ancient Lords…

…When thou ringeth the bell of awakening…

...The fate of the undead thou shalt know.'

These words have been passed down through my family, ever since the curse first appeared in our lands. They were my purpose. Please, take them as yours."

You pause, as the words flow over you. A prophecy… no, a _duty._ Something sparks a memory, and stone settles over your features.

You look around at the crumbling walls of this cell. There is no food here, and it is only after a long moment that you find the inhabitant, curled in the corner. They are naked, but there is nothing left to identify them. Their skin has dried and shriveled, their hair fallen out or rotted away. They do not breathe, but seem to twitch, the motions of a heart forcing itself to beat when all the blood has rotted out of the veins.

 _That_ , you think, _is a hollow._ This knight is not there yet.

You return your gaze to him, taking note of the way his breathing is already starting to fade. "You are undead," you say. It is hardly a question—no uncursed man would come to this place.

"Yes," he says, forcing the word out with an exhalation.

"Then you can remember those words yourself."

A silence follows, for a moment, punctuated only by the shifting of rubble as the knight raises his head, slowly. "I am all but gone, friend. Another death will end my mind, and turn me hollow. I can feel it."

"Then you will not die again." You let go of his hand, and thread your arms under his body.

He lets out a gasp, tensing in your arms as you slowly lift him. "Please… do not waste your effort so. I won't make it to the bonfire, not with that beast out there."

The body should be heavy, the armor doubly so, but even as the muscles in your legs and back go taut you find that it does not feel so difficult after all. "There is another fire, back through the cells."

You finish standing, holding the knight like a bride. You take care, but you can feel how wrongly his bones are moving. You can hear the pain in his breath. This will kill him soon.

"We will have to hurry," you mutter. He does not respond. You can only tell he is conscious by how he keeps his head up, how he tries to stay in your arms.

You walk, stepping as deftly as you can over the threshold and the corpse of the hollow you slew before. There are torches, against the wall, casting strange light across the knight's helmet. His breathing quickens as you stumble on a misplaced stone, but he does not speak. You wonder what he's thinking.

Is this the right choice? To prolong his accursed journey? Perhaps going hollow is a kind of rest, for the mind, at least. But then you have seen hollows. You see her again, as you pass the cells… the woman who clawed her fingers to the bone, and continues on. She is sobbing under her breath, biting what remains of her lip and staring at the stone with faded eyes.

That is not peace. There is no peace, for the undead.

You carry on, past your mad and gibbering kin, until the bonfire glows golden upon your breastplate.

You set the knight down, carefully propping him against the wall nearest the bonfire. Already, his breathing is slowing, sounding a little stronger. The fire heals by mere proximity. You sit beside him, letting the warmth fill you also.

"You will live," you say.

He turns his head. "Thank you," he says, but the words ring empty.

"Your quest… the first step is to leave this place." You look down the other hallway, to the courtyard where the demon killed you. You hear a distant strained grunting, the frantic beating of wings, then a terrific crash and a long, mournful bellow. The demon has grown too fat to fly. You wonder if it has been eating the prisoners. "That demon must die."

"Fighting it did not work so well for me," the knight says.

"Nor for me." You ponder, for a moment. "But that is to be expected. Our size defeats us." You blink, then stand. "How did you get to the roof?"

"There are stairs, past the cell you found me in." The knight sits up, setting his back more firmly against the wall. His voice is growing stronger, but there's still a deadness in it. He needs more than the bonfire, but at least he's alive for the moment.

You consider this, and pull your broadsword from where you stowed it at your belt. The bonfire has cleaned it for you, and it now gleams hungrily in your hands.

"I will return," you say. "One way or another."

 

The hollow you slew has stood himself back up, and leers at you as you approach. You cut him down with his own sword, and move on. The stairs are where the knight said they would be.

Halfway up, you hear a strange grunt ahead of you. You look up just in time to see a huge iron ball bearing down on you.

You die. Again.

 

You wake at the bonfire, and find the knight sitting there, staring at his hands. He looks at you, blankly.

You stand, and head off to try again.

 

The ball embedded itself in the wall, and as you approach you can see that it was attached to a chain, which itself was anchored to a very large leg, its knee as high as your waist.

The owner of the leg lays stretched across the hall, moaning listlessly into the air. He is as huge as his limb would suggest, perhaps ten, or twelve feet tall. Once, this man might have been a knight of great strength, but now he cannot even stand up. The ball dislocated his leg when it fell, but you suspect from the look in his eyes that the moans he gives now are of a very different kind of pain.

Beside him, a hollow in dark hooded robes crouches, gibbering quietly. She must have pushed the ball down the stairs, a thief's last instincts at work. She makes a halfhearted stab at you with a remarkably dull knife. You separate her head from her shoulders and continue on.

 

 

You turn a corner, and spot an archer standing at the end of a long hallway. He sees you as well, and quickly knocks an arrow, growling something incoherent through a thick black beard. He looses two arrows, once clipping your pauldron. He tries for a third as you run down the corridor towards him, but his ancient bowstring finally snaps. You dispatch him with a single clean swipe, and for the first time you notice something, a faint mist that seems to rise from the fallen undead and move, quite on its own, towards you. It settles on your armor, seeping in.

You pay it no mind. If it is disease, you will worry about it later, if it bears worrying about at all.

 

You pass through an unlocked door and find yourself outside. The walls are ruined here, old brick crumbled long ago to uselessness. Hollows lie about the perimeter, but they most take no notice of you. One follows you with her empty eyes, silent and solemn, but makes no other move.

You stop at remains of the far wall, and look out over the lands beyond the asylum. The exit gate is below you, and ahead stretches a long, crooked path, leading up to the top of a hill and disappearing over it. Beyond that, snow-cracked mountains stretch on into the distance. This place is isolated. There are more like it, you've heard, buried far off in the mountains where no sane human would wander. The undead are unwanted, but difficult to eliminate. This was Astora's solution.

"Lordran… longwayis."

You step back, whirling and drawing your sword. The hollow who'd followed your approach still looks at you, but now she grins, exposing two cracked teeth and little else but void.

"Lordran," she repeats, and goes on, her head bobbing as she slurs her words together. "Lords… ran. Heheeha! But goyounow there yes. Goyounow there and…"

Her head lolls, and her eyes drift away from you, to something else, and a low wail escapes her as her hands slowly reach up to claw at her scalp. There's not much hair left, but she pulls a hunk of it out like a cluster of weeds and holds it tight in front of her.

"Who me?" she whimpers. "Who me who me who mewhome? How here? Why?" She falls to her knees and moans, and retches, and

aughs, and laughs, and laughs…

You can't keep looking at her. You cannot bring yourself to watch this person lose herself.

"Your name," you say.

She pauses, catching her breath. "Looze…" she groans. "Loose… Lucinda."

"Lucinda," you repeat. You turn to her, forcing yourself to look at the decaying husk of a person. "There is a bonfire, back through the cells." You point. "Find it, if you can. I will leave the door open for you."

She stares at you, and you're not certain if she understands or not. But after a moment, she nods. You offer her your hand, and she catches it in hers, frail and dry.

"Thank… you," she says, in a voice like crumbling rice paper.

You're not certain you should be thanked. You simply nod. She holds your gaze a moment longer, with eyes that aren't quite hollow yet, and then turns away and begins shambling off towards the bonfire. You wonder if she has enough will left to link to it, or if she'll even make it that far. You wonder if you've even done the right thing.

You continue on.

 

Ahead of you, an archway in the wall leads out onto a small platform overlooking the courtyard, perhaps meant for guards or overseers, but long disused now. You spot the demon, and quickly duck into the shadow of the arch. The thing is panting, clearly overtaxed.. It is obese and unclean, its skin gnarled and cankered like old wood. Its teeth, jutting out of sickly grey gums, have an awful orange color to them, and great antlers jut from its head like gnarled dead trees. One of its eyes is cataracted to whiteness, but the other is dark and beady, roving about with a distinct intelligence. Its hands, meaty, and calloused, grip its huge hammer, fashioned from some kind of dark grey stone. Upon its back, shriveled wings quiver with exertion. As you thought, it cannot fly. You wonder how long it was on that roof. Perhaps it has another way up?

The demon seems lost in thought. It paces a little, wings twitching. It sets its hammer against a wall, and reaches towards the back of its head.

It pulls a massive key from behind its ear. You hear it mumble something, for the value of "mumble" that involves a reduction in clarity, not necessarily in volume. Volume it has in plenty. "Sh'da gut meself a bag I sh'd."

It grabs its hammer, and starts waddling towards the door beneath you. "Bliddy u'dead," it mutters. "Can' stay in th' bliddy cells like theys told, nha. Neva stays flat when y's smash 'em. Bliddy u'dead."

You wait, until the demon's head is eclipsed by the overlook. Then, quickly and quietly, you step out onto it and peer down. The demon has a rancid odor, like fish left in the sun. Its head is covered in the same mottled green hide as the rest, and the horns extend around it. You'll need to do this just right… or you'll have to figure out another way to get past it.

The little key is lost in its massive hands, and it keeps on mumbling, oblivious to your presence. "Bliddy hummen keys, hummen u'ded, nuffin good come from hummins—"

You take a breath, and catch the demon's scent, like rotting leather. For just an instant, you hesitate.

A cold-blooded strike against a jailer for keeping too close a watch. Is this what a knight of Astora is reduced to?

Behind you, the road stretches out, towards the mountains.

_The fate of the undead thou shalt know._

You steel yourself, and, sword ready, step off the platform.

One of the horns grazes your gauntlet, but your sword falls true. The point pierces hide and skull, driven by your weight. The demon screams, and its meaty hand crashes against your back, but the blow only serves to deepen the crack and dive your blade through, into the soft brain below.

The demon wails, its arms twitching as they fall to its sides. It sputters something that might be an attempt at speech, but you're already pulling the blade out. You drive it in again, changing the angle, and again, and again, _harder._

At last, the demon's legs give out. You step backwards and wrench the sword out of its head as it falls to crash into the tiles like a stone from the sky.

The fight is over.

You stand before the corpse, silent. Your sword hangs in your hand. The demon's eyes are open, its jaws locked together by the ground in a final grimace. It glares sightlessly past you, at the door it sought to open.

The strange mist comes again, thicker this time, rising from the demon and rushing into your chest. You stumble back. It tingles, and you suddenly feel… warm.

 _Souls._ That's what it is. You remember now, some of what you'd known of the undead.

This was why you are feared, in part. The darksign, the brand of the undead, serves a second, darker purpose. When a creature dies near an undead, its souls, the souls that should have dispersed out into the world again, are drawn to the accursed, accumulating within their body. In this way, undead can drain the life from the land they walk upon, and the murderous can quickly grow in strength far beyond the limits of a normal man.

You feel stronger already. You wonder how long you were taking in souls, as you rotted in your cell. Perhaps that is why you could lift that knight so easily, why driving a broadsword into a demon's skull seemed like not so great a task.

But these are distant matters.

You step forward once more, kneeling to the demon's face, and close its eyes.

"I am sorry," you say, softly. "Perhaps you deserved this, perhaps not. That is not mine to say. Goodbye, Demon of the Asylum."

It feels hollow, but that is hardly unique these days.

The key is at your feet. You pick it up, sparing only a glance for the patterns carved into the thick blade.

You turn, and head back towards the bonfire.

 

The knight is standing, waiting for you. He nods as you approach.

The other hollow, Lucinda, sits by the fire beside him, silent. Her eyes catch the flame, unblinking. It's filling her. You force yourself to look away as the knight speaks.

"Then you've done it," the knights says. "The way is open?"

Wordless, you hold the key up for him to see.

He takes a breath, squaring his shoulders. "Then… thank you. You've done me more kindness today than I ever could have expected."

You shake your head. "You are a knight of Astora, yes?" He nods. "Then do not thank me. You have a duty. Tend to it, and I will consider that your thanks."

For a moment, he seems speechless, though his visor, flickering in the bonfire's light, gives no sign of his feelings. Finally, he speaks. "Then what of you? You too are a knight, are you not? And of the same land, if I place your armor's marking correctly."

You nod. "My duties were finished finished long ago, in the homeland. Now…"

You falter. Now what, precisely? You have aided this knight in his duty, but what is your path? You could stay in the asylum, as you were meant to, but you are rather sick of the dampness and the rot, to say nothing of the smell of hollows.

You're still in thought when the knight speaks again. "Then take mine."

You look up sharply, but he continues before you can speak. "Thou art undead, therefore thou art chosen. This is not an exclusive quest, and it would do me great comfort to know that there is another on this path."

You feel a twinge of anger. "In the event that you fall, go hollow, and cannot complete it, you mean."

"Yes."

You want to strike him. It is cowardice, pure and simple. A knight of Astora, given a duty, should pursue that duty without rest or hesitation. To even contemplate failure is a disgrace.

But… reason stays your hand. You remember your fight with the demon jailer, if it could even be called such. You think of the cell you rotted in, provided by the kingdom you served. Your Knighthood meant something, once. Now, that once-firm ground feels like so much mud and sand. 

But you do know one thing, with absolute certainty: A knight's duty is something personal to every knight. It may be a creed, a loyalty to a certain master, a particular foe to be slain. It may be anything, really.

But once a knight of Astora takes a duty, they must work to fulfill it until their heart is ripped from their chest.

"Fine, then." You extend your hand, and he shakes it. "Then let us share your quest." 

He nods, and after a moment's hesitation, reaches up and lifts his visor.

You suppress a shudder. Hollowing isn't a state, so much as it is a progression. He is quite far along. While his voice sounds like that of a young man, his face is that of one very, very old, twisted and thin like wrinkled paper. His eyes have even started to glaze over, though they still hold a clear focus. "Oscar of Astora," he says. 

You repeat his gesture, lifting your visor. He does not react, but you have to wonder if that is because of tact or because there is little to react to. You remain very glad there is no mirror in this place.

"Eliza," you say, "of Astora."


	2. The Crow and the Crestfallen

The road leading away from the asylum is cracked and overgrown, disordered stone trailing weakly up the hill beyond the gates. Oscar leans on your arm as you walk, your armor creaking as you go, slowly, out of the gates. 

Lucinda does not follow you. Last you saw, she was still staring at the flame. You try and put her out of your mind.

"To the Land of Ancient Lords," Oscar murmurs. You wonder if the words are meant for you, for himself, or are spoken without meaning at all, just echoes of a dying mind's memories.

But there is a question, unspoken by Oscar but still planted in your mind: How were you to reach the Land of Ancient Lords? The prophecy must be referring to Lordran, the land of the Gods, but from the Asylum… you do not know the path.

Perhaps a map could be acquired, somewhere down the road? How many settlements this far north?

You wonder this as you crest the hill, and you nearly miss the point where the road stops being a road and becomes a cliff. You freeze, nearly falling backward in your haste.

The path ends here. You stare down at the cliffside below, which vanishes into the white mists. It's a hard thing to tell, from inside the Asylum, but all of this is built more or less on the crest of a lonely mountain, isolated from the rest of its kin by a ringed valley.

At your side, Oscar looks down at the drop below. "I'd rather not go down there, if you don't mind."

"Nor I," you murmur. You cannot imagine that the Asylum's neighbors are particularly friendly.

 

But then, something catches your ear, and you look up just in time to catch the sight of a great pair of beating wings before black talons snatch you away.

 

The crow carries you far, so far that you lose track of the land passing beneath. In one claw it grips you, Oscar in the other. The position is not the most comfortable, but it's hardly worth complaining about, all things considered.

Oh, you spent a good while being concerned, but it quickly dawned on you that drawing your sword on the giant bird carrying you might not be the brightest action you could undertake. Certainly, it would do little to aid your quest.

Oscar, for his part, barely seems to have noticed the transition. It's becoming unsettling, how his affect seems to slip away, how the eyes you see through the visor are milking over. You try to remember if there's a way to reverse hollowing, at least for a short time, but if there is, you've never heard of it. Or at least, you do not remember now.

Suddenly, the bird lets out a loud caw, and swoops down low over the earth. You catch a flash of stone, of twisted branches clenching up towards you, and then you hit the earth, rolling against the soft dirt until you come to a rest on your side, your sword uncomfortably wedged between your body and the earth.

   
You raise your head, and find a bonfire already burning beside you.

 

You sit there there for a time, feeling the aches in your body melting away again. The sky here is clouded, the sun shining on through far to the west. The bonfire is in a depression in the ground, at the center of some kind of ruin, overgrown now with ivy and moss. The great crow sits perched atop a pillar of stone, its black eyes roving about the landscape beyond the crumbling walls.

Gradually, you force yourself up, rising into a crouch and then standing. Oscar lies on his back nearby, staring up at the sky, his visor lifted by the landing, the bonfire's light glinting faintly off his armor. His eyes are wide, but seem not to see, and something like panic flashes in your heart. You do not know the precise process of hollowing, or at what point sanity is well and truly lost, but you know he is approaching it.

You cast your eyes about. You are in the ruins of some round structure, overgrown now with dull green moss. The ruins go on a way, with doors leading off in various directions and a walled-off cliff in another. Looking past the wall, you see something that shocks you into stillness.

A great wall, rising up towards the sky.

You are in Lordran, land of the Gods.

The crow glances down at you, and as you look up you imagine, for a moment, that it smirks.

But this does nothing for Oscar's situation, and you quickly turn from the vista to look for… you don't know. But you spy something you'd missed before—a figure, clad in pale blue mail, sitting at the edge of the ruined circle. You quickly approach.

There is something odd about his appearance, a blur that seems to hang around him in the air. Further, it seems he's been sitting on that stone for so long that vines and moss have worked their way up through the links of his armor, spreading out around his shoulders and back, turning the pale blue metal to a floral green. A flower blooms over his shoulder, pale white.

But when he lifts his head to look at you, it is not the face of a hollow that greets you. He's a young man, on the plain side of attractive, his short black hair tousled with neglect. He sits a little straighter as you approach, but stays relaxed. His eyes barely seem to register your presence.

"Well… what have we here?" he says, his voice a strange monotone. "Another pilgrim from the asylum carried aloft, hm?" His thin lips twitch into a smirk. "Oh, don't mind me. Go on and run your little quest, as you like. I'm quite done with it myself."

Another? Had other undead slipped out past the jailer, climbing out through the shattered walls and getting themselves snatched up by the great crow?

You shake your head. A worry for a later time. "Are you undead, then?"

His eyebrow lifts. "Forward, are we? Yes, I suppose I am. What of it?"

"Do you know of a way to stave off hollowing?" His other eyebrow lifts to match his first, and you add, "Even if only for a little while."

The man's smirk broadens, and his eyes flicker to Oscar, lying still on the ground. "A companion? Well, that truly is something novel. Yes, I know a way. A few ways. You will need to recover his humanity."

He pauses, eyeing you appraisingly. "A knight of Astora," he murmurs. "Well, you'd have no trouble. There are a few ways to go about restoring your humanity. You could gather the black sprites that linger on corpses, or find a cleric and get yourself summoned. Or—and mind, I would never condone this—you could steal it from some poor sod who has too much."

You meet his eyes, see the tiredness there. He looks human enough, but you wonder if he even has enough "humanity" to steal in the first place. He frowns. "Don't get any funny ideas, dear knight. I'm no pushover, I'll have you know."

You turn your head, scanning the field until… you spot a corpse, draped over the lip of what looks to be an old well. On it, a flicker of… _something._

"There you are," the man says. "That's what you'll want. One sprite should be enough to stave off hollowing, for a time."

You turn back to him. "And why don't you take it for yourself?" You ask.

The man spreads his hands, and you realize for the first time that you can see the ground through them. His whole body, on close inspection, is strangely transparent. "The simpleton's answer," he says, "is that I'm not quite here at all. But," and his shoulders sag as he breathes out a long sigh. "I'm tired of talking. Go on and save your friend, and quit bothering me, would you?"

You glance back at Oscar's still form, and turn on your heel. The corpse is old, rotted nearly to the bone, but as you get closer you see the little sprites clearly. One pokes up from a wound in the body, while another hangs from corpse's open jaws. On its back, you see another pass beneath the skin, writhing like a strange, ethereal worm.

You reach for the first, and catch it between your fingers, drawing it away from the body. It shivers, and two cold white dots, like eyes, appear and stare back at you. Your hand feels… numb.

You quickly take the sprite back to Oscar, and set it on his chest. You're not sure quite what else to do.

But Oscar lifts his head as the little black shape shivers on his breastplate. His eyes focus on it, and widen just a little. He lifts his hand and grasps the sprite, and begins to squeeze. It writhes in his fingers, but he only tightens his grip until, suddenly, the sprite bursts, expanding into a cloud of strange mottled mist which quickly rushes up—into his mouth.

He chokes, but the mist rushes on, even as he begins to cough. After a moment, the last of the mist slips in despite one last ragged gasp, and Oscar's helm falls back against the moss.

You hear something, beneath his armor, a… _twisting._ Even as you watch, the wrinkles in his face ripple and smooth out, revealing sharp the sharp features of a young Astoran man. Something moves beneath an eyelid, distorting the flesh.

Then, he settles into stillness.

After a moment, Oscar opens his eyes. They are as blue as the sky used to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's shorter, but I probably should have just gotten them to Firelink in the first part anyway. Think of it as 1.5? Dunno.


	3. The Shrine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A beginner's mistake.

You sit beside the bonfire, looking up at the great walls of Lordran, and you wonder how this all came to be.

There is much you do not remember. Your comrades. Your family. Your life before the asylum. Grey voids hold their places in your memory, save occasional distant flashes, like hunters' campfires off in the hills after sunset, or the songs echoing down the slopes from mountain villages.

You remember the sky was blue. You remember the white walls of Astora, the throne room where you knelt before a king. You remember nothing of his face, but you remember his sword, resting flat upon your head. You don't remember his words, but you remember the pride they stirred in your breast.

You remember honor. You remember loyalty. You remember betrayal, as they dragged you from your home, naked but for the mark on your back. You remember when they gave you your tainted armor and marched you into a creaking cart.

Now, in this ruined circle upon the cliff, looking out at the land of the Gods rising all around you… all of it feels immaterial. This place is _real_ in a way your past life never was. It's as if the gears that turn the world grind beneath your feet, and Astora, for all its ivory and steel, was only ever a quaint little backwater, your fall from grace only a housewife's tale. This place, ruined though it may be, is the heart of all creation.

Or at least, it was once so. The walls are cracked and crumbling, now, and there is little sign of life beyond the pale green foliage that coats the ruins and the crow… which sits perched atop the remains of a rooftop, over one of the shrine's more central buildings. This place, for all its ancient grandeur… it is clearly dying. Whatever glory it had has faded down to embers.

Part of you finds this tragic. Another part looks to the upper wall. The inner city, Anor Londo, lies behind those ancient stones. You wonder if it resembles the rest of Lordran, or if the gods have consolidated their glory and left their people to rot. This is not the way any kingdom should greet its visitors. For the Land of Ancient Lords, it is an utter disgrace.

After Oscar's recovery, you took a second sprite from the corpse and followed his example. The mist tasted oddly like pine smoke, but rushed at you like the ocean, clawing into your lungs and forcing them to live. You remember lifting your visor, placing your hand against your face. You remember how soft your cheek felt, and you remember how Oscar looked at you, before he caught himself, the awe in his eyes.

You have to smile, just a little. Amusing, in it's way. It is not the first time another knight has looked at you in such a way.

After taking some time to get used to the feeling of being human, you spoke to the crestfallen fellow again. He was helpful, in his own meandering manner.

That 'fate of the undead' saying is nonsense." He didn't look at you as he spoke, and indeed it was hard to tell if his words were even for your ears at all. " You're not the first I've seen come through this place with those words on their back, let me tell you. I've seen all sorts, knights, wizards, clerics, thieves. Lots of reasons, too. Few of them make it very far, of course. One managed to ring the bell, only to find out there were really two!" The man laughed, shaking his head sadly. "The poor woman headed off to find it. The first was no picnic to reach, up at that forsaken church on the hill above us. But the second? Through _Blighttown?_ The woman never came back. Surely, she went hollow down there."

You thanked him, and he brushed you off to continue sulking.

Still, as unhelpful as the man had tried to be, he'd set your path. Two bells, one above, one below.

You can see the church from here. It all but hangs over the cliff above the ruins, silent and dark with the sun behind. The light through the stained glass windows would doubtlessly have looked spectacular—but the windows are gone, now, shattered and scattered. As you walk through the ruins, along the base of the cliff, you spot colored shards among the grass.

It seems there's no easy way up. Most likely, you'll have to find some way to get to the church from the other side.

You step back into the center of the shrine, the circle where the bonfire rests. Oscar stands, still shaky, and nods to you. "I owe you a great deal," he says, as you approach.

"Do not trouble yourself over it," you answer. "I suspect we'll both have time to repay each other many times before our task is done."

He smiles, thinly.

A breeze crosses in from the east, whistling through the stones and across the grass, as you explain what the crestfallen fellow said about the bells. The bonfire seems brighter than the sun as you sit beside it, glinting off the armor you both wear. They're different, though similar. Yours is bulkier, slightly, while Oscars has fine blue cloth laid over the plate, embroidered with familial crests. You recall nothing quite like it—perhaps it was something that came into fashion a century after you were placed in the Asylum.

"We need to take the lay of the land," Oscar says.

"You'll find no argument from me." You turn, looking back at the ruins. They extend a good ways back, before they join to the cliff face. "We should start here. This bonfire makes for a good camp; but we should know what lies around it before we make any bold strokes outward."

Oscar stands, his movements faster than before, now that the humanity has settled within him. "We should stay together. We don't know what kind of beasts may have settled in this place."

You sniff. "Knights of Astora have nothing to fear from some ruined temple."

Oscar regards you, eyes blue behind a glittering visor. "This is Lordran, Eliza. Our knighthood does not mean the same here as it once did."

You think of the cracked walls, and the hidden city beyond. "This land is _ruined_ ," you say, shocked at the ferocity in your own voice.

Sunlight glints off Oscar's helm, and you get the sudden sense that you've upset him. His words are as precise and hard as slingstones. "This land is _Lordran_ ," he says, as if the weight of the word will shatter the ground beneath your feet.

Wind whistles through the ruins. You're not certain how long.

He stands and turns away from you sharply. "Do what you will. I'll take the cliffside. We should reconvene in a few hours, and plan our next move."

 

You walk deeper into the shrine, the shifting of your armor and the fall of your boots the only sounds that shimmer off the crumbling walls.

A part of you is angry at Oscar. Devotion to the gods is all well and good, but you've seen what that devotion can do to a man's reason. You remember the wars with Thorolund, the "blessed" clerics fighting like mad beasts while chanting holy scripture, their wounds sealing over as their eyes shined with blinding light.

You also remember Astora's own miracles, the faint glow of a blessed sword in a captain's hand, the quiet recitation over bedsides to mend illness. Humble things, to augment the natural skill and strength of the kingdom's knights. Faith had its place, but that place was always beside reason, never before it.

Oscar is younger than you. You wonder if he reflects some shift in thinking in your homeland.

You step through an archway, and suddenly find that there's no floor before you. You stumble forward, and splash into shin-deep water, almost losing your balance and falling in on your face.

The water has been here a long time, judging by the smell. Lilies have grown up around the corners of a room that clearly once had a roof. Looking up, you spot the remains of a dome of some kind. Perhaps this was a temple?

The crow is up there, its claws digging scars into the stone as it preens itself. It pays you no attention, and you return the favor.

The water has already seeped into your boots, so you elect to simply trudge on through it. The floor beneath is stone, at least, and not mud. You reach a door at the side of the room and step up out of the water.

This room is even less intact than the last, mostly just a pair of walls facing the shrine. The back is gone completely, leading out to a set of cracked and crooked steps that carry you down to a tangled graveyard the stones set haphazardly and the marking faded by uncounted years of neglect.

There's no telling if this path will lead up to the church. You can't see what happens as the graveyard winds around the cliffs behind the shrine.

Something catches your eye, in the grass at your feet, and you reach down to pick it up. A coin, bronze and covered in faint green patina.

A smile twists at your mouth, and you set the coin on your thumb. Heads to keep going, tails to turn around. The decision feels familiar, harkening back to distant memories, smaller hands.

You flick the coin into the air, and watch it spin until it clatters down onto the stones.

A pair of dull brown eyes stare off towards the steps. The graveyard, then.

You ease your way down the steps, when suddenly a flicker of light catches your eye. An inscription, marked on the stone wall in amber.

_"Beware. The bones of the dead stalk these graves."_

You inspect the inscription, puzzled. Who left this here? You trace the words, and find that they are warm under your fingers.

It feels important, somehow. Still, you need to find a way up to the church.

You go slowly down the steps this time. As you reach the bottom, you notice that the ground is littered with bones. Human ones.

This is starting to feel like a mistake.

You stop. Something is rustling among the bones, shifting them about. You peer closer, but it seems as if there's something invisible moving a femur across the muddy earth.

No, actually several somethings. More bones start moving, and begin to rise into the air as you back away, towards the steps. The bones assemble themselves, piece by piece, into the figure of a man. A bony hand, still clutching a scimitar, fixes itself at his wrist.

Yes, this was a mistake. You get ready to make a run for the stairs—

—only to feel a sharp pain in your back.

You look down. A blade is rising from between your ribs. You tilt your head, and peer over your shoulder.

A skull grins at you as you die again.


	4. The Climb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You ascend.

You sit by the bonfire for a time, unmoving.

 _The graveyard path is out, then,_ you think.

You try to smile.

You find the skull's empty eyes on the backs of your eyelids.

Your smile fades.

You pull your knees to your breastplate, as tight as you can. The armor clanks together, rustling over the wounds you no longer have. The grass is damp with dew, but it is not morning. How many hours have you been here? The sun has not moved since you arrived.

You thought this place felt real. It does.

It's just that _you_ don't.

Slowly, you remove the gauntlet at your right hand. Your fingers shake as you unbuckle the straps, easing it off your fingers. You let it fall to the grass. The buckles jingle, cacophonous in the stillness of the shrine.

Already, you can see your skin starting to tighten. You lost a little humanity. Not all of it, but enough that you can imagine lines of artificial age bordering your mouth as you suck in a breath at the sight of what you really feared.

You had a scar, between your thumb and index finger. It's one of the few memories of your childhood that remains clear. A mishandled cooking knife. You remember bleeding into the potatoes, watching with confused fascination as the red spilled out and colored the grey and brown. You don't remember what happened afterward, but you remember the scar: a white line stretching from the base of your thumb halfway to your wrist.

It's gone. Bonfire, hollowing, or "humanity," something wiped it away.

You don't have to look for the rest. They're gone too.

You can't breathe. Your want to claw at your smooth skin, tear new lines, carve your story back into your shell. But when you die again—and you _will_ die again—you know they will be gone.

You used to have a scar on your brow, from a training accident. One on your cheek, from an arrow that just barely missed your eye. One, wide, on your hip, from the jagged mace of a Thorolund cleric. Two on your back, one wide and one thin.

You don't remember how you got the last two. You don't remember how you got the other fifteen. But you remember the scars.

You clutch at the memory, until Oscar returns to the shrine.

He stops, and the two of you look at each other.

"There's a graveyard behind the shrine," you say. You realize your voice is shaking, and cough sharply, steady yourself. You reach for the gauntlet, and take one last look at your hand as you slide it back inside. "I didn't see a way up."

Oscar hesitates, then dips his head. "I may have found better," he says.

  
He leads you past the well to a set of stone steps, nearly overgrown with moss and lichen. The path soon narrows until there is barely enough room to walk, with the cliff face on your left and a sheer drop to your right. You're forced to keep careful track of your footing on the steps, cracked and crooked with uncounted age.

"This path leads to a town, of sorts," Oscar explains as you slowly ascend. "It looks like little more than a den of hollows now, but I believe there may be a path to the church further up."

You scan the path ahead. The stairs continue up along the side of the cliff, until the ground widens a bit, eventually reaching the side of what is unmistakably an aqueduct.

You've seen such works before, of course. Astora had them, as did many neighboring nations.

But this one is old, as old as the rest of the land. The bricks are crumbling, stubbled with ivy and moss, and a brown trickle of water runs incontinently down one of the pillars, falling into the murky valley far below. There is no decoration, not the white-painted shells of Astoran aqueducts or the glittering sight-towers Vinheim placed along theirs. Only pale greenery, clinging to the old stones.

You shake yourself out of your reverie. There are hollows along the path, further up. They sway on their feet, wearing scraps of armor and holding jagged, broken swords. Guards, by the looks of them, left here by the curse. You assess them, but hardly worry about their presence. One has an intact sword and shield, but the others are hardly even worth worrying about.

"The aqueduct will either lead in or out of the settlement," Oscar says, and you look past the aqueduct, through the mist, and spot the outlines of buildings pressed up against the walls. "With luck, there will be a path to the parish from there."

"With luck?" you ask. A gust of wind whistles along the cliff face, tugging at your mail.

"With luck," Oscar says. "Or, rather, with logic. A church implies a congregation. Proximity implies that congregation came from this town, or another nearby. The locations should be linked."

"A fair point." You look to Oscar, then past him. One of the hollows has turned, and is slowly shambling down the steps towards you. "Well, let's get on with this then. You're in front; lead the charge."

Oscar looks at you, and you wonder if he's smiling. "As you say," he says, drawing his sword and hefting his shield. "Let's get to it."

You both sprint forward, and quickly find that one of the things these hollows have forgotten is their training as soldiers. They lurch about to face you, weapon arms hanging low. They move like their muscles have turned to sludge, tatter-clad feet sinking slightly into the wet ground around the steps.

The path widens before you, giving Oscar and yourself space to stand side-by-side. The first two hollows reach you, and you easily bat away a clumsy swing with your gauntlet, using the opening to drive your sword between the ancient soldier's ribs. Crumbling leather gives way before bonfire-hardened steel, and the hollow falls with a gurgle. To your left, Oscar does the same.

He turns, whipping his sword out from the hollow's neck, and starts to say something.

Then, a little black orb falls from the sky, and smashes over his head.

And suddenly, Oscar is on fire. He screams, flailing as burning oil seeps into his armor, his cries echoing off the walls of the valley.

You stagger back as he lurches past you, stumbles, and tips—still screaming—off the edge of the cliff. You watch, only for an instant, as he tumbles into the darkness below, as his screams fade. It's a long way down.

Then, you turn forward again with a snarl in your throat. The hollow at the top of the cliff has more of the little black orbs at his belt. One is in his hand.

He throws it. You step aside. Fire spreads out, finding little traction on the damp grass and stone. Some of the burning oil slides off into the valley.

You run, even as the hollow's feeble fingers try to loosen another orb from his belt. You reach the top of the steps. You slash, and the hollow's head follows Oscar into the abyss. Its body flops to the ground.

You stand, panting, eyes roving about for more foes. There is one more hollow, the one with the sword and shield. She seems a little more composed than the rest, her gaunt face still identifiable as female despite the wrinkles and decay. She sits on the cliff and stares down into the valley. Perhaps watching Oscar fall to his death. In any case, she doesn't notice you.

Your head turns, back towards the shrine, and you start walking.

 

You find him, sitting by the bonfire, head in his hands.

"I dislike fire," he says, once you approach. "I _immensely_ dislike fire." He inhales, and pulls himself to his feet. "Apologies for that," he says tersely. "Shall we continue?"

"You're out of practice," you say. More than that, you think. He's not as far as the hollows, but he's losing his training, as sure as his memories. He should have been keeping track of all his opponents.

But then, you didn't see that hollow either.

There's a pause, as the two of you consider your words. "Yes, I am," Oscar says at last. "Shall we continue?"

 

The hollow with the shield hasn't moved since you left, and the two of you elect to leave her be. Instead, you climb the stairs further, finally reaching the side of the aqueduct. The stairs continue on up, to a grate in the duct's side.

You take the lead this time, edging along the ledge towards the opening. The hollow with the shield is below you, close now. You can see the rust at the edges of her shield, the way the moss has started crawling up her decaying feet.

The grate guarding the aqueduct's side has rusted away, and something has knocked out several of the bars. It's still a tight fit with your armor, but you and Oscar manage to squeeze through. The smell is the first thing you notice, the thick and noxious stench of decaying waste. You try not to think about what you're wading through. Thankfully, your boots are tall, and the hard leather is waterproof enough to protect your feet.

The tunnel just wide enough for the two of you to cram in side-by-side. It's black all the way down both ends, except for a sliver of light, far off down the tunnel. Oscar lets you take the lead this time. You don't argue.

You're just about to start off towards the light when something behind you _growls._ From the sound, something _large._

You share a look with Oscar, in the dull light from the entryway. The two of you quickly come to the same conclusion.

You run.

 

Whatever was behind you, it seems it was not particularly healthy. Likely, it had been feeding—or at least, _trying_ to feed—on hollows that wandered in. You're not sure whether that would be better or worse than trying to live off the aqueduct's waste. Either way, it's fortunate for you, as about twenty meters down the tunnel the thing gives out a long wheeze and splashes loudly into the muck. A chittering moan is all that follows you the rest of the way to the light.

The light is, as you'd hoped, another broken grate. A set of stairs lead up from here, better cared for than the ones below. You take them two at a time, kicking the muck off your feet. Oscar follows close behind.

"Good lords," you mutter, turning your head to look back at Oscar as you cross the top step. "I'm glad we've finished with—"

Two things flash over Oscar's eyes. A shadow, and a spark of terror.

He dives forward, wrapping his arms around your waist and hauling you crashing back on top of him.

On the spot where you were standing, a claw slams into the stone, skidding along the walkway.

Your eyes trace up the leg, past a body the size of a barracks, along over red-scaled wings, along a serpent's neck and head, to beady black eyes that stare into yours.

The dragon roars, and the world shakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually got this one done! I'm on a roll!
> 
> It may not reflect well on me to admit it, but I live on your comments and kudos. Crit is welcome, as (of course) is praise. Thank you for reading!


	5. The Burg Beneath the Wall

You have never seen a dragon before.

You have  _ heard _ of them, of course. Every knight has heard stories of dragons—and more particularly  _ dragon slayers— _ but have you seen one? In the flesh? Did you ever  _ expect  _ to? 

Not as much.

You haul yourself up off Oscar as the dragon rears its serpentine neck back. Its eyes are small, like little black stones buried in thick, waxy scales. Thorns of some kind of ruddy chitin push out like thick porcupine quills from every inch of its body that doesn't preclude movement—and a few places that do, places where longer spines have left cuts in limbs or parts of the neck, black scars as thick as your arm that look like they've gone centuries without properly healing. Four more crown the back of its elongated skull.

Its breath pounds down on you, eyes roving across its body. It's… not what you imagined, frankly.

Not that you imagined to see a dragon in your lifetime. They were supposed to be dead, or at least driven to the far corners of the world. Certainly one wasn't supposed to be in  _ Lordran,  _ of all places.

But the more you look at it, even as its head tilts to get a better look at you, as Oscar scrambles to his feet and grabs your arm and tries to pull you away, one fact catches your mind and holds there.

You can see it, in the wings, in the crown of the head, in the long sweep of the snout. This thing truly does carry the blood of dragons.

But you can see just as much in its stubby legs, faltering under its own weight. In the tattered membranes between the long fingers of its wings, in the waxy thorns that have grown out in place of scales, in the oozing wounds and the sickly green veins visible around its eyes, its belly, its neck…

This isn't a real dragon. This isn't a thing which fought Lord Gwyn and his knights of silver beneath the boughs of the ashen Archtrees, at the dawn of the age of fire. This is not what Ornstein was famed for slaying.

This is...

"An inbred bastard child."

Oscar freezes, and you realize you just said that out loud.

And the dragon, oh,  _ it heard you. _

And given by the way its eyes narrow before it opens its mouth to engulf you in roiling fire, you suppose it understood you just fine.

  
  
  


You die quickly this time. It's a small mercy.   
  
  


  


The bonfire's light glitters over your gauntlets as you hold them out towards it. It's strange, how one fire warms as readily as another burns. Differences only of degree—or some deeper disparity? You've always understood there to be something…  _ pure  _ about the bonfires, but the specifics elude you now, if you ever knew them.

Oscar shifts, and you look up to find him watching you. He tilts his head, a little. "It seems we're at a bottleneck," he says. "From what you've said, the graveyard is far too much even for the two of us, and we've both seen the other path."

"There may be other paths," you say. "And it's possible the dragon will have moved on."

"The thing in the sewer?"

This gives you pause. You're still not quite sure what that thing  _ was— _ or  _ is,  _ rather. Some kind of beast, or a very large hollow perhaps. Regardless, it's in your way now. 

You unsheath your sword, and the light glimmers across it as you inspect the sharpness of the blade. Perfect, of course. The Bonfire's work. "I say we try the aqueduct again." You say. "It still seems the most likely of options."

"And if we fail again?"   


You turn to Oscar. His visor is down, but you can imagine his eyes clearly now. Very much like your own. "Then we try again."

A knife's edge slips into Oscar's voice. "And so on, until we go hollow?"

"So on," you say, "until we complete our task."

Oscar says nothing to this, and you take it as your cue to stand, and start out towards the aqueduct again. "Come," you say. "We've no need for resting, now."   
  
  


  


  


You pause at the aqueduct's entrance. You can hear something moving further down, where the light has trouble reaching. A grumbling chatter rolls through the pipe as it splashes about.

Looking in, you catch sight of a bulbous shape in the gloom. It's large, but not as large as you'd expected. The walls are amplifying the noise.

You look to Oscar, who offers a shrug that rustles his armor. He draws his sword and slaps the flat of it lightly against the stone.

The thing turns, having to squeeze itself against the walls in the process. Ember eyes glitter out from the dark.

It lunges down the tunnel, dragging flesh against the walls, and a sound half like a roar and half a scream belches from its ragged throat. You tense at the entryway, ready to stab at it as it enters your reach, but Oscar is closer.

He thrusts once, as it comes into the light, spearing it through the head. It jerks, once, and lets out a hiss of a breath.

And then it dies.

You stare at it for a moment in stark disbelief. The thing which scared you so badly, chased you out into the dragon's mouth, literally speaking…

Was a fucking  _ rat. _ A very large rat, granted. Quite a bit bigger than the average shepherd's dog. But a  _ rat. _

A sound hits you, strangely alien yet, at the same time, familiar. A sharp, repetitive noise, something you haven't heard in… a very long time it seems. It takes you a moment to recognize it.

Oscar is laughing.

He nearly doubles over, shifting to put his weight on the aqueduct wall. "Gods," he gasps, then laughs again. He lifts his visor with his off-hand—the one not coated in foul rat-blood—and wipe his eyes. He glances at you, and grins like an absolute fool. "It's just a bloody rat!" he says, and nearly collapses onto his back in a fit of giggling.

"Are you… well?" you say, tentatively.

"Oh yes, very well." Oscar coughs, and rights himself a bit, shrugging his visor back down over his face. "Yes, yes. I was just… expecting something rather different. Rather more somber and threatening than…" He kicks the thing in its blubbery, gangrenous flesh. "This."

You stare at him for a moment, nearly stunned, but he steps into the tunnel, motioning you to follow, and you do.

Still, it's all you can think as you edge more carefully through the aqueduct:

You'd forgotten that sound. You'd forgotten the sound of laughter.

  
  
  


You venture out onto the bridge slowly, eyes swiveling to search for the dragon. It seems to have flown off, but there are still great marks in the brick where its talons tore through. You venture across, passing out onto a small plaza. There are hollows here, only about half a dozen in all, milling about at the edges. A few stare out over ramparts; the others just walk in lazy arcs, not really seeming to know where they're going.

Most of them do not react to you as you pass. One lurches away from the wall it was leaned against and tries to grab you, but a single cut sends its head to roll upon the stones. Another tries to follow, but stumbles over the corpse and comes half apart when it hits the ground. These are desiccated things, many too hollow to even stand upright. They are little threat.

The plaza is built into one side of the cliff, and the buildings are built up around it. They arc out above you, crumbling supports suggesting gravity's eventual victory, though few, it seems, have actually fallen into the lower streets. They're ramshackle things. Not like the stones of the aqueduct or the great walls visible in the distance. Newer constructions, which decayed to this state more quickly, a consequence of their shabbiness.

At the end of the court, you find a staircase within a building, which leads up to another bridge.

You pause, both of you flanking the doors. High above, you catch sight of the dragon as it wheels through the clouds, circling in strange silence. But, eventually, it moves on, winging away to some other place, and you make your way across.

Another courtyard. More hollows. Some of these are armed, with swords that glimmer dully. They glare at you, torn throats gurgling with the remnants of speech as they fan out in the last dregs of strategy, but you are two knights of Astora, fresh with the Bonfire's restoration and the lingering glimmers of black humanity.

One comes at you with its shield raised, but the thing is more rust than iron. You lift your foot and kick into the guard, and your boot crunches through the rust to smash the hollow's foot. You follow up with a slash across the hollow's belly, where the leather padding has long since mouldered away. Beside you, Oscar has already decapitated his foe.

Then, a sharp pain lances through your stomach.

You look down, finding a crossbow bolt embedded there.

It's… remarkably inconsequential.

  
  
  


The shooter was on a rampart, on the other side of the plaza. Oscar shoves her over the rampart and into the valley, once you've dispatched the rest.

He gestures with his sword, to a structure that crosses above the one you're standing upon. A bridge, of sorts, across the wide valley to whose walls this town clings. "If we seek the church, that is our best path," he says.

It takes some time for you to trace the path, but you find it. A tower, at the far end of the settlement, connecting to a great span of wall, which in turn connects to the bridge. It's madness, but so much of this place has fallen to ruin that it's the only route you can see.

You start off, towards the tower, but Oscar catches your shoulder.

You turn to glare at him, questioning, but he only points to something back over his shoulder.

Inside one of the crumbling buildings, beneath the bridge, a bonfire burns.

  
  
  


You do not stay long, only long enough to feel the fire. Then it's off, across another bridge, through another building. More hollows greet you there, more composed. You slam into them together, locking blades with one that seems to have nearly a full swordswoman's equipment still clinging to her flesh. She hisses at you through a mouth without teeth, her voice trying desperately to build words.

"Sssoulss, want,  _ need,  _ soulssss…"

You spare her any further wanting, cleaving her head from her spine. She collapses, and Oscar grunts as he drives his own sword through the chest of his opponent.

The mist of her souls rises up, thicker than the other hollows you've slain. It warms you as you take it in.

You feel a little stronger. You feel a little sick.

You try and put it out of your mind, stalking past Oscar and pushing open the next door. Another hollow rushes you, and you slay it. Up some stairs, and three more stare at you. One clutches one of those fire-orbs.

They die.

Oscar puts his hand on your shoulder as you wrench your broadsword from the cleft in the last hollow's collarbone. You glance back at him.

"That house," he says, gesturing to a structure on the other end of this courtyard. "I think we should go through it. It will give us cover as we approach the base of the tower."

The words catch on you, forcing you to think for a moment. "Yes," you say, blinking away sweat you hadn't felt in your eyes. "I agree."

Oscar tilts his head, but says nothing.

The "house," to use Oscar's generous descriptor, is more of a stone shack which seems to have been assembled atop the plaza at some point. There's a light burning inside, you can half-see it through the windows. There's a wood door facing you, but, surprisingly, it's locked, and in remarkably good condition. You give it a kick, but it refuses to budge.

You turn to Oscar, about to suggest a running start, when you hear movement inside. You snatch your sword, and tense as you hear the sound of fingers rasping on wood. Then, you hear a voice.

"Who is it? Who's out there, eh?"

The voice sounds reasonably human, which is a bit of a shock. You weren't expecting to hear a sane voice in a place like this. "We are knights," you say, lowering your sword a fraction. "Just passing by."

"Knights? Foreign Knights?" the voice coughs. "Bah, no matter. If you've your wits about you, then you're welcome customers."

Hands fiddle with the lock, and the door opens, revealing a thin, emaciated face. Glittering eyes take you in.

"Well, don't just stand there," the hollow says. "Get on inside afore more o' those shambling bastards wander over."


End file.
